Sample shortlist · candidates written by us, real screener output
Bookkeeping Assistant
This is what every search delivers: finalists screened against the brief, each with a score, screening notes, structured answers, and a graded work sample. These sample candidates were written by us and run through the real screener — the scores and notes are its unedited output, not a mock-up.
The brief they were screened against
Role: Bookkeeping Assistant · Band: $600–1,000/mo
Must-haves: high-volume transaction entry and categorisation in QuickBooks Online or Xero, receipt and invoice matching, asks rather than guesses on an ambiguous category, works cleanly under a senior bookkeeper's review
Nice to have: Dext or Hubdoc, bank-feed rules, AP invoice entry in Bill.com
Scored by the same rubric the production screener runs on real applicants (bookkeeper, claude-sonnet-4-6), on 2026-09-23. Nothing below was edited afterwards — including where it went against a candidate. The rubric and weights are published.
Joanna P.
SCREEN 84/100Screening notes
Strongest evidence is the work sample: the candidate independently identified accrual vs. materiality tension on the Jobber prepaid, split the Home Depot receipt correctly across two categories with a capitalization-threshold rationale tied to a specific dollar figure ($2,500) from 'client file notes,' and gave defensible memo text throughout — none of that detail was supplied by the question. The scenario answer is procedurally excellent: the Ask My Accountant holding-account move, the deliberate rejection of a vendor-name bank rule in favor of an amount-based rule for the $249 charge, and the structured morning message to the senior bookkeeper all reflect real workflow discipline rather than textbook recitation. The error-rate arc (1-in-25 to 1-in-200) and the vendor-notes sheet are specific and self-consistent, and the tool list (Dext Prepare with supplier rules, Bill.com on two clients, ProAdvisor cert) maps precisely to the brief's must-haves and nice-to-haves. The one genuine gap is that no spoken-English evidence exists and written English, while clear and precise, has not been stress-tested under time pressure; at $850 asking against an $800–$1,500 band this is a low-risk hire to advance to a short live interview focused on verbal fluency and one or two live categorization edge cases.
Experience
3 years as a bookkeeping assistant at a Makati outsourcing firm that keeps the books for clients of US accounting practices. I enter and categorise 1,300–1,600 transactions a month across nine small businesses in QuickBooks Online — two restaurants, a dental practice, three trades companies and three online stores — and two senior bookkeepers review everything before close. In my first quarter they corrected about 1 entry in 25. By the end of my second year it was under 1 in 200, mostly because I started keeping a vendor-notes sheet per client listing every vendor that can land in more than one category.
Scenario answer
The 4pm deadline covers all 200 receipts, so my first decision is not to let 30 stuck ones hold up the 170 that aren't. 1. Park the 30, finish the other 70. I leave the 30 unpublished in Dext, note where I stopped, and enter the rest at normal speed with receipts attached. That leaves the afternoon for the hard ones. 2. Open all 30 source documents and sort them by what the paper proves. A vendor that sells both usually shows it on the invoice: a subscription invoice has a plan name, a seat count and a billing period; a services invoice has hours, a project name or a statement-of-work number. If 19 of the 30 are clear on the invoice, those are not guesses, so I enter them, each with a memo like 'Software per invoice: Pro plan, 12 seats, Oct 1–31' or 'Prof services per invoice: 6.5 hrs onboarding'. The bookkeeper can check my reason without reopening the PDF. 3. The other 11 are card receipts with only the vendor name and a total. For these I don't pick either category, even though last month's coding would probably be right. I post them to Ask My Accountant, the holding account our firm sets up in every client file, with both possible categories in the memo, so the amounts are in the period and the bank feed is cleared, and the only open question is the category. If the client has given us a login to the vendor's billing portal, I pull those invoices first and move as many as I can into step 2. 4. I don't create a bank rule for this vendor today, even though it would save time next month. A rule on the vendor name would push every future invoice into one category, which is the exact mistake I'm avoiding. 5. At 3:30 I check that the total entered matches the receipt list to the cent, that every entry has its image attached, and that Ask My Accountant holds exactly the 11. Then one message to the bookkeeper, on whichever channel they check first in the morning: '[Client]: all 200 receipts are in QuickBooks and the total ties to the receipt list. [Vendor]: 19 coded from the invoice lines, memo on each. 11 are card receipts with no invoice detail; they're in Ask My Accountant with both options noted. 9 of those 11 are exactly $249.00, the Pro plan price on the invoices I could read, so I'd suggest Software for those. The other 2 ($1,800 and $2,450) I can't call. I'll reclass as soon as you reply. For later: an amount-based rule for the $249 charge would be safe; a vendor rule wouldn't.'
Work sample
CLIENT: a 14-person landscaping company in Charlotte, NC. QuickBooks Online, accrual basis, categories from the client's own chart of accounts. 1. Oct 1, Jobber, $3,588.00 (annual plan, paid upfront) — Prepaid Expenses (see A) 2. Oct 3, Shell, $118.42 (fuel, crew truck 2) — Vehicle: Fuel 3. Oct 6, SiteOne Landscape Supply, $1,264.80 (mulch, pine straw and 40 boxwoods for the Harris Rd job) — Cost of Goods Sold: Job Materials 4. Oct 8, Google Ads, $600.00 — Advertising & Marketing 5. Oct 10, local small-engine repair shop, $412.50 (belts and blades on two mowers) — Repairs & Maintenance: Equipment 6. Oct 14, The Home Depot, $2,146.18 — split: $1,497.00 Small Tools & Equipment / $649.18 Cost of Goods Sold: Job Materials (see B) 7. Oct 20, NEXT Insurance, $386.00 (monthly general liability) — Insurance: General Liability 8. Oct 27, Verizon, $286.40 (four crew-lead phones) — Utilities: Phone A — THE ANNUAL JOBBER PLAN $3,588 paid on October 1 covers October to September. The books are on accrual, so I'd post it to Prepaid Expenses and release $299 a month to Software & Subscriptions; otherwise October carries a whole year of software and the next eleven months carry none. Why it's debatable: some firms expense annual prepayments under a set amount straight away, even on accrual, because the effect on any one month is small. I don't know this firm's threshold yet, so I'd post it to Prepaid, set up the $299 recurring journal as a reminder rather than scheduled so nothing posts on its own, and ask at the first review. B — THE HOME DEPOT RECEIPT One receipt, two different things: a backpack blower and a string trimmer ($1,497.00 together) and $649.18 of edging, landscape fabric and stakes for the Harris Rd job. The materials go to Job Materials so the job cost is right. The tools are the debatable part: they'll last several seasons, so you could argue they're fixed assets. Each one is well under the $2,500 per-item capitalisation policy in this client's file notes, so I'd expense them to Small Tools & Equipment and list both items in the memo. If the bookkeeper wants them on the fixed-asset register instead, the memo makes it a two-minute reclass.
Rodel S.
SCREEN 84/100Screening notes
Strongest concrete evidence: 1,800 invoices/month through Bill.com with PO/work-order matching is a specific, verifiable volume claim; the duplicate-billing catch ($3,480 roofing invoice, different invoice numbers, three weeks apart) and the self-initiated process fix (amount+property duplicate check, found five more that year) are exactly the kind of unsupplied detail that signals real experience rather than question-parroting. The scenario answer is operationally sequenced and mature — the 'holding account with both options in the memo so totals are complete' discipline, the 3:45 count-and-dollar tie-out, and the explicit refusal to bulk-code on prior-month precedent all reflect a worker who understands why the controls exist, not just what they are. The work sample is the clearest proof of category judgment: the flooring flag correctly separates payment urgency from capitalization question and names the $2,500 threshold as a firm policy rather than a personal preference; the Amazon three-way split routes the ambiguous $33.98 to holding with a specific question rather than guessing, which is precisely the brief's 'asks rather than guesses' criterion. Biggest concern: QBO/Xero experience is two years of entry and bank feeds only — no chart-of-accounts setup, no year-end close, no mention of month-end journal entries or reconciliation depth beyond what the scenario implies; for a role described as including monthly close this is a real ceiling, though the brief labels this a…
Experience
5 years. 3 years in accounts payable at a Cebu shared-services centre for a US property-management company: about 1,800 vendor invoices a month through Bill.com, each matched to a work order or purchase order before it went for approval. Then 2 years on a four-client bookkeeping team in QuickBooks Online and Xero. In AP I caught a roofing contractor billing the same $3,480 repair twice under different invoice numbers, three weeks apart. After that I added a duplicate check on amount plus property, not just invoice number, and it found five more that year.
Scenario answer
This is the problem I dealt with every week in AP: one vendor, two kinds of invoice, and the vendor name tells you nothing. What I do, in order: 1. Set the 30 aside and finish the other 70 first. They aren't blocked, and the 4pm deadline is for them too. 2. Put the 30 in a quick sheet (date, amount, invoice number, the description line) and sort by invoice number. In my AP work, vendors that sold both usually billed them from different numbering series, or showed a plan and a billing period on one kind and hours on the other. Once they're side by side, most of them sort themselves. 3. While they're side by side, check for duplicates: same amount, same date, different invoice number. A batch of look-alike invoices from one vendor is exactly where a double-entered receipt hides. 4. For the ones still unclear, look at how the bookkeeper coded this vendor in earlier months at the same amount. I use that to write my suggestion, not to post. 5. If the firm lets us ask vendors for invoice copies (my current team does), email the vendor's billing contact before lunch for the missing ones. In my experience billing teams answer the same day, and the invoice ends the question for good. 6. Enter what the paper decides, with the reason in the memo. Anything still unclear at 3:30 goes to the holding account with both possible categories in the memo, so the totals are complete and nothing is coded on a guess. 7. At 3:45, check the count and the dollar total against the receipt log, and that every entry has its receipt attached. What I won't do is code all 30 the way this vendor was coded last month. That's right most of the time, and the time it's wrong is a $4,000 implementation invoice sitting in Software until the CPA asks why software doubled. Before 4pm I send the bookkeeper: '[Client] receipts: 199 of 200 entered, and the total ties to the receipt log less one $640 receipt I held back. It looks like a duplicate (same amount and date as another, different invoice number); details in the sheet. [Vendor]: 22 coded from the invoice lines, reason in each memo. 7 are in the holding account, with both options and my suggestion for each in the attached sheet. The 30th is that possible duplicate. I've asked the vendor for copies of 3 of the 7, and if they reply tonight I'll update before you log in.'
Work sample
CLIENT: a physical-therapy practice with two clinics in Tucson, AZ. QuickBooks Online; bills come in through Hubdoc, categories from the client's chart of accounts. 1. Nov 2, landlord for clinic 2, $6,850.00 (monthly rent) — Rent: Clinic 2 2. Nov 3, Medline, $1,128.40 (resistance bands, electrode pads, ultrasound gel; matched to the packing slip) — Medical Supplies 3. Nov 5, WebPT, $1,260.00 (monthly subscription, both clinics) — Software & Subscriptions 4. Nov 9, Tucson Electric Power, $612.35 — Utilities: Electric 5. Nov 10, commercial cleaning contractor, $950.00 (twice-weekly cleaning) — Janitorial 6. Nov 13, flooring contractor, $4,200.00 — Repairs & Maintenance, flagged (see A) 7. Nov 18, Amazon, $312.47 — split three ways (see B) 8. Nov 24, continuing-education provider, $495.00 (one therapist's certification course) — Education & Training A — THE $4,200 FLOORING INVOICE New flooring in two treatment rooms plus drywall patching. If it was water damage and they replaced like with like, it's a repair. If it was an upgrade or part of a remodel, it's closer to a leasehold improvement that gets depreciated. The invoice doesn't say which. I'd keep two questions apart: payment and category. The bill is due in 15 days and the clinic manager signed off the work, so I enter it and it gets paid on time. For the category I code it to Repairs & Maintenance, because that's what the invoice describes, and flag it, because it's over the $2,500 line where our firm asks before expensing. The flag carries the one question that settles it: was this water damage or a planned upgrade? B — THE AMAZON ORDER One order, three different things: foam rollers and bands ($188.50, Medical Supplies), a label printer for the front desk ($89.99, Office Supplies & Equipment), and a pair of kids' headphones ($33.98). I split the first two. The headphones might be for the waiting room, or they might be personal. That isn't mine to decide, so the $33.98 goes to the holding account with the question for the owner, through the bookkeeper.
Valeria G.
SCREEN 72/100Screening notes
Strongest concrete evidence: 8 months of live QuickBooks Online work on a real US client (marketing agency), named tools (Siigo, QBO, Excel), and a work sample that shows genuine categorization judgment — the Amazon and restaurant debatables are correctly reasoned from materiality and receipt context, not just restated from the question. The scenario answer is procedurally sound and hits the brief's key must-have ('asks rather than guesses') only partially: using prior-month categories as a proxy is defensible junior behavior, and the memo-flag plus email follow-up show clean workflow under a senior reviewer, but the answer leans toward autonomous re-categorization rather than hard-parking ambiguous items — a meaningful gap given the brief explicitly prizes asking over guessing. Experience specificity is real but thin: two years at a Bogotá firm with Siigo is credible context, but no client volume, no transaction counts, and no mention of Dext/Hubdoc/Bill.com limits the score; Comcast coded to Utilities rather than Telephone is a minor flag that suggests limited US chart-of-accounts exposure. Verdict: advances to a short skills interview with a live QBO reconciliation task; fits the $800 ask comfortably and is a plausible hire if the interview confirms volume capacity and confirms she will genuinely pause on ambiguous categories rather than self-categorize.
Experience
2 years as an accounting assistant at an accounting firm in Bogotá, doing data entry, bank reconciliations and supplier invoices for local small businesses in Siigo. For the last 8 months I have also supported a US client, a small marketing agency, entering their expenses and receipts in QuickBooks Online. I have a degree in Contaduría Pública. I am very organised and detail-oriented, and I always try to keep the books up to date.
Scenario answer
If I find 30 receipts where the category is not clear and the bookkeeper is not available, I would not stop working, because the deadline is 4pm and the other entries also need to be finished. First, I would finish entering all the receipts that are clear, so the other 170 entries are done on time. For the 30 ambiguous ones, I would look at how this supplier was categorised in previous months in QuickBooks and use the same category, because that is probably how the bookkeeper wants it. If the invoice description looks like consulting, I would put it in professional services, and if it looks like a software plan, in software subscriptions. I would add a note in the memo of these 30 entries saying 'please review category', so the bookkeeper can find them easily. Before 4pm I would check that all 200 entries are complete and that the totals are correct. Then I would send an email to the bookkeeper explaining that there were 30 receipts from this supplier where the category was not clear, that I categorised them based on the previous months, and that they are marked for review. I would also say that I am available tomorrow to make any changes. I think it is important to meet the deadline and also keep the bookkeeper informed.
Work sample
Examples from the small marketing agency I support, in QuickBooks Online: 1. Adobe, $89.99 — Software & Subscriptions 2. Office Depot, $64.30 — Office Supplies 3. Uber, $27.50 — Travel 4. Zoom, $21.99 — Software & Subscriptions 5. Upwork (freelance designer), $450.00 — Contractors 6. Comcast Business, $119.00 — Utilities 7. Amazon, $156.20 — Office Supplies 8. Restaurant, $86.50 — Meals Debatable 1: The Amazon purchase was a desk lamp and a keyboard. It could be Office Supplies or Office Equipment. I chose Office Supplies because the amount is small and it is not a big asset. Debatable 2: The restaurant receipt was a lunch with a client. It could be Meals or Entertainment. I chose Meals because it was a business lunch and not an event.
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